Chapter 2. Setting Up a Local Site

Chapter 2. Setting Up a Local Site

What you probably want to do with this book is jump to the fun parts and start making Web pages. You can skip this chapter and make Web pages willy-nilly, but if you do, you'll miss out on some of the best time- saving tools that come with Dreamweaver.

This chapter describes how to set up Dreamweaver so that it helps you manage a set of pages as a local site. A local site is a 0collection of pages on your computer that are destined to be part of a site on the Internet. You should set up your pages locally in the same folders they'll be in on the Web.

Sometimes half the battle of creating a Web site is figuring out where all the files are. If they're scattered all over your hard drive, you need to locate them, check all the links and image locations, upload the files, and then check all the links again.

Dreamweaver's file management tools (Figure 2.1) don't preclude having to check your links, but they do make it easier to administer things, especially if you keep your pages and folders in the same order they'll be on your site.

Figure 2.1. The Site window operates as a local site management and site planning tool, as well as an FTP client. This is the local site view. In Chapter 20, I'll discuss the Remote Site view and the Site Map view. The other window pictured here is the Assets panel.

The Site window and the Assets panel are the tools we'll learn about in this chapter. The Site window helps you set up your local Web site files. The Assets panel helps you keep track of images and other site resources.